Somewhere between Agatha Christie and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this is a merry and enthusiastically complicated comic novel about time trSomewhere between Agatha Christie and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, this is a merry and enthusiastically complicated comic novel about time travel. It is set, largely, in the Victorian era, where "historians" from the future have gone back in time in search of an arcane church artifact and then to repair the damage they have done to the "continuum." Exceptionally well crafted, both as a massively plotted puzzle in four dimensions, and also for comic effect. This is not the kind of comedy that will have you rolling on the floor, but if you have a taste for the absurd it should give you plenty of chuckles. ...more

Reread in 2017: I was very new to audiobooks when I gave it four stars. It's... droll. It's Erma Bombeck for the 1880s, to make a reference that is foReread in 2017: I was very new to audiobooks when I gave it four stars. It's... droll. It's Erma Bombeck for the 1880s, to make a reference that is for all practical purposes as dated as Jerome K. Jerome....more

2017 -- Hoo boy, this book didn't stand up well to a second run-through. Its magic is, I think, all in the way the structure and the logical puzzle of2017 -- Hoo boy, this book didn't stand up well to a second run-through. Its magic is, I think, all in the way the structure and the logical puzzle of the action fit together, and a lot of the satisfaction of the first read depends on a careful rationing of information. When you already have a sense of how the time travel works, and how the narrative works, there are a lot of unattractive trappings that become really clear, including but not limited to endless pop-culture and high-culture name-dropping, purple flights of prose, an endless back stretch of fretting over reproductive issues, and characters whose overblown backgrounds, interests, and occupations overwhelm a sense of real personalities.

The first time through, I was so caught up in the unfolding of the plot that I didn't really notice these problems. So, even as I ratchet down my opinion of the book -- and, to be very frank I found it quite tedious this time around -- I have to acknowledge the craftsmanship that made it such a terrific ride the first time around.

Poor casting for the audiobook version I was listening to this time (2006 Audible/HighBridge, Fred Berman and Phoebe Strole) certainly didn't help matters.

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2009 -- Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler’s Wife. The Time Traveler’s Wife falls, consciously or not, in the great Science Fiction tradition of stories that sets up a simple counterfactual scenario -- in this case, what if there was this guy who sporadically traveled involuntarily back in time? -- and explores what the ramifications might be. In this case, we end up with a beautifully rendered story about the nature love, loss, and the passage of time. These are universal themes, of course, the same ones that are explored in much mainstream literature. But The Time Traveler’s Wife also serves as a good example of, how by imagining people in unprecedented and extreme situations, the Science Fiction author can provide fresh insights, or at least a fresh viewpoint, into human nature.

In addition to being good Literary Science Fiction, incidentally, this book offers a great romance, strongly drawn characters, and an intricate puzzle of twisted and overlapping timelines. The two primary characters experience events in different orders, often knowing what lies in store in the future of the other; as readers, events are revealed to us on yet a third timeline. It is an intricate puzzle of cause and effect, and Niffenegger has structured the book masterfully to keep us thoroughly engaged in what will happen next. Or what will have happened next. It is a wonderfully crafted text....more

I read The Trial again. I honestly didn’t think much of it the first time, but with anything that packs as muchRead in January 2009. Listened in 2016.

I read The Trial again. I honestly didn’t think much of it the first time, but with anything that packs as much reputation as The Trial it only makes sense to give it a second shot. Most of the classics, I’ve found, turn out to be pretty damn good. Maybe I would have grown into Kafka!

The Trial, this time around, reminded me of another classic from a couple decades earlier: Richard Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra. Both of the two works begin with a dramatic flourish that everybody knows: the big famous 2001 fanfare in the Strauss tone poem, and K’s arrest in Kafka’s book. And afterwards, both pieces fade into a long series of murky, dark-hued passages that are a bit of a chore to get through. Kafka at least has a pretty good second movement – er, chapter – in which K has to wend his way through tenement housing looking for the absurd court in the attic, an episode poised between nightmare logic and slapstick silliness. It’s a tone that the remainder of the book tries to maintain, but without much success.

Living in Central Europe at the beginning of the twentieth century, Kafka would have been no stranger to the presence of secret police and occasionally dodgy legal proceedings. Still, on second reading I think that it’s a bit literal to think of The Trial as being “about” totalitarian societies. On this reading, it seemed pretty easy to construe the novel as being “about” the futility of human existence, when viewed in a grumpy mood.

In this interpretation, Kafka creates a kind of twentieth century Pilgrim’s Progress, an analogy to everyman’s crisis of mortality or, if you like, the mid-life crisis. At age 30, K is suddenly beset by an unsettling force that seems to doom him. He spends chapter after chapter seeking solace in the various diversions and social institutions that are supposed to structure our lives: family, the rule of law, romantic adventure, professional life, and lastly (in most arrangements of the book, which Kafka didn’t really finish) religion. Nothing really helps, and the relentless march towards his doom continues. Sound familiar? If not, wait until you turn 30!

In my first review, I mostly missed this angle, although I did speculate that Kafka’s “literary star must have risen with hand in hand existentialism, a philosophical movement perfectly attuned to his protagonists' alienated struggles against the absurd.…” Now, the philosophy of existentialism and the experience of an extended mid-life crisis aren’t exactly the same thing, of course, but they’re certainly within hailing distance of each other.

Did The Trial grow on me on a second reading? No, dang it, it did not. I continue to find it a rather dull story, and as a document of its times I’m distracted by my knowledge that it was never finished and not published until well after the death of its author. It is more of an interesting document of the times forty years later in which it became popular, but now we’ve left literature behind and have moved on to the history of intellectual trends. That’s cool, and The Trial is arguably worth reading, but it doesn’t make the book more of a success either as a work of art or as an entertainment. ...more

Beowulf is a message in a bottle from an amazingly remote time and way of life. It is like a letter that you find in the attic, written by a culturalBeowulf is a message in a bottle from an amazingly remote time and way of life. It is like a letter that you find in the attic, written by a cultural great-great-grandparent, an eccentric ancestor that you never had the chance to meet and whom you know precious little about, but whose influence is still felt every time the family gets together.

The differences between your life and the life of a medieval Anglo-Saxon tribesman are notable. You, gentle reader, live perched on the framework of a global economic system, a relatively stable social order, and myriad wonders of technological achievement and materials science. The Anglo-Saxon, on the other hand, has a life style that, although by no means "natural" -- we're talking about human beings, here -- is far more exposed to the elements and to the immediate questions of food supply and survival than we are or probably could bear to be. Manufactured items are exceedingly rare. With communication sporadic and resources few, human-on-human violence is a commonplace.

These are people without literacy, without an organized justice system, without antibiotics. They can not expect to be famous in the future or to be defended from assault by others, and they know that life is always extremely tenuous. All of this breeds a way of thinking about priorities that seems to the modern eye, shall we say, bracingly rugged. There are no frills, and there is no romance. Beowulf, the warrior hero, lays it out for us before going into battle:

"...do not grieve. It is always betterto avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning.For every one of us, living in this worldmeans waiting for our end. Let whoever canwin glory before death. When a warrior is gone,that will be his best and only bulwark."

A NOTE ON THE TEXTNo one knows the exact origins of the Beowulf story. We don't know whether it was an important legend among the Anglo-Saxons or just a random one that happened to survive by accident. It is an oddity in that it is a written relic of a non-literate people; the oral tale survived long enough into the reintroduction of literacy for someone -- two someones, judging by the handwriting -- to write it all down.

There is a lot of Christian content in Beowulf layered over a clearly pagan core narrative. This may be because the scribes who wrote the tale down, who were almost certainly monks, manipulated its content; or, it's possible that the tale had evolved Christian trappings among its tellers in the newly Christianized population. Either way, the text reflects its having been written down in the period of transition from non-literate pagan England to literate, Christian England.

THAT WAS A GOOD KINGThe Anglo-Saxons are a tribal people; in the grand game of Civilization, they have discovered Iron Working but not Monarchy. What they call "Kings" are really regional warlords. The job of these kings is to protect their people through wise leadership in war and diplomacy, and to ensure that everyone gets an equal cut of the spoils. Alliances must be well thought out, wars must be prosecuted with vigor and valor, and treasure and the honor that it signifies must be distributed fairly and properly to those who have earned it.

To an great extent, Beowulf is a kind of Medieval Machiavelli, a manual of advice for the Anglo-Saxon king. Beyond the basic tale of hero fighting monsters, the text is packed with digressive speeches that recount the histories of tribes, heroes, and events. Each of these tales comes with an implied suggestion for the best practice of leadership.

One of the key messages of Beowulf, for instance, is "avoid feuds." The idea that "it is always better to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning" is intended to deter crime and violence by the threat of reprisal, and doubtless it often served that function. It's an unstable system, though, in that once the peace is broken it tends to stay broken, in an endless cycle of reprisal killings. And this is bad. Feuds are costly, disruptive, and almost impossible to stop once they are underway. They can fester for generations. The Anglo-Saxons, as you might expect, understood the psychology of this very well; at one point, the tale contemplates two tribes trying to end a decades-old feud through a judicious political marriage:

"Than an old spearman will speak while they are drinking [at the wedding feast:],having glimpsed some heirloom that brings alivememories of the massacre; his mood will darkenand heart-stricken, in the stress of his emotion,he will begin to test a young man's temperand stir up trouble, starting like this:'Now, my friend, don't you recognizeyour father's sword, his favourite weapon,the one he wore when he went out in his war-maskto face the Danes on that final day?...and now here's a son of one or otherof those same killers coming through our halloverbearing us, mouthing boasts,and rigged in armor that by right is yours.'And so he keeps on, recalling and accusing,working things up with bitter wordsuntil one of the [bride's:] retainers liesspattered in blood, split openon his father's account....Then on both sides the oath-bound lordswill break the peace...."

It's hard to end feuds. Readers of Beowulf are reminded of this constantly, and reminded that the best path is to make sure that feuds don't get started in the first place.

An even more important message is "be generous." Give until it hurts. In Beowulf, the final measure of a king is how much loot he is passing around. If you are distributing a lot of gold to your people, it shows that you have successfully fostered and defended the wealth of the community, and that you honor and respect the work of the people who made it all possible. It is, oddly enough, a more or less democratic mechanism, a way of assuring the consent of the governed. If you are tight-fisted, you will sow resentment and dissent, and you will not be king for long.

Considering that we are in the Early Middle Ages, here -- the proverbial "Dark Ages" -- its impressive what a promenant role queens have in this system of distributing wealth and honor. They mix freely and with apparent ease through the company of warriors, and the honors that they bestow through words and gifts are portrayed as somewhat independent of, but equal to, those of their husbands. That they possess some measure of power -- and that they, like their husbands, were considered under obligation to exercise that power wisely -- is shown clearly in this episode:

"Great Queen Modthrythperpetrated terrible wrongs.If any retainer ever made boldto look her in the face, if an eye not her lord'sstared at her directly during daylight,the outcome was sealed: he was kept boundin hand-tightened shackles, racked, tortureduntil doom was pronounced -- death by the sword,slash of blade, blood-gush and death qualmsin an evil display. Even a queenoutstanding in beauty must not overstep like that.A queen should weave peace, not punish the innocentwith loss of life for imagined insults."

Queens are definitely not entirely autonomous, but then this is not a society of autonomous individuals. Everyone in the community is bound to everyone else by obligations of service, responsibility, and the sharing of loot.

ABOUT THAT LOOTThe Anglo-Saxons are mad for it. They do not share our notion of the embarassment of riches. Unabashed materialists, they find gold fascinating and lovely, and frankly want as much of it as possible. In a time of very, very few manufactured goods, a handful of gold hoops seems to have represented the good life. Indeed, to an Anglo-Saxon gold "rings" (bracelets, really) ARE the good life -- they are the luxury automobile, the McMansion, the marble countertops, the master bedroom suite with wraparound shower, the weekends in Aspen, the whole deal. It's all wrapped up in a few bands of metal. A person's rings represent their honor and their standing among their peers, and thus, like the luxuries of any era, they have a psychological worth unrelated to their inherent beauty or utility.

This is the kind of thing that makes Beowulf so fascinating. Its characters think and act in ways that are often wholly alien to us. But at the same time, they are human beings and, for those of us who grew up in the matrix of the English speaking world, they are important cultural ancestors. In there with the alien, there are plenty of glimpses of what we share.

ON THE TRANSLATIONI read the popular recent translation by the Irish poet Seamus Heany. This version is sometimes criticized on technical grounds and for being "too much Seamus Heany, not enough Beowulf." I am unqualified to comment on the technical questions, but can comfortably say that "too much Seamus Heaney" is an oxymoron. The text as he renders it is a brilliant piece of alliterative poetry. I read it out loud, probably to the puzzlement of the neighbors, and it felt great coming out of the mouth. The only problem was getting the rumbling rhythms out of my speech for a few hours afterwards.

SUMMARYYou know the story. Man fights monsters: Grendel, Grendel's mom, and a dragon. The fights don't make up much of the text, though, and for my money they are just window dressing for a much more interesting meditation on the qualities and responsibilities of leadership. ...more

When I say it's "laugh out loud funny," I mean that I was frequently howling with laughter, pounding the armrest, gasping for breath, and rolling backWhen I say it's "laugh out loud funny," I mean that I was frequently howling with laughter, pounding the armrest, gasping for breath, and rolling back and forth in helpless convulsions of mirth. Mrs.5000 would glance up from her long, difficult, experimental French novel with a look that, if not exactly distainful, at least carried the hint of a suggestion that I might be overdoing it. This, of course, would set me right off again, and although at no point was I actually rolling on the floor per se, it was touch and go a few times.

Topics include, you know, things like family, language, life, death, international travel, and the struggle against tobacco addiction. But it hardly matters. Sedaris could make a trip to the morgue funny. In fact, he does.

2017 - I'm always a bit suspicious of the hot book of the moment, so I was surprised the first time I read Pi (a couple of years afteRead August 2006.

2017 - I'm always a bit suspicious of the hot book of the moment, so I was surprised the first time I read Pi (a couple of years after its moment) by how much I enjoyed it, how unsettling I found it, and how much intellectual ground Martel managed to cover, in simple language and starting with a cartoon-caption-contest scenario.

This time around, my assumption was that I had overrated it the first time around and that this rereading would knock it down a peg. Nope. It's a pretty dynamite piece of light fiction....more

I listened to an audiobook of this in March 2016 and kept getting the impression that I'd accidentally skipped forward, and that things were moving wiI listened to an audiobook of this in March 2016 and kept getting the impression that I'd accidentally skipped forward, and that things were moving with crazy speed. Turns out that it was an aggressively abridged version. Bleh....more

On my second or third go-around -- February 2009 -- I'm most struck by how Austen is, in every single sentence, gently mocking her characters. It's loOn my second or third go-around -- February 2009 -- I'm most struck by how Austen is, in every single sentence, gently mocking her characters. It's lovely to behold. I had forgotten, too, that the whole hermetic little society under examination is a brisk morning's walk from London, which makes all of their insularity and intriguing just that much more hilarious.

April 2009: Back in graduate school, when our idea of a really good time was studying abstruse social theory, there was one or another -ism that purpoApril 2009: Back in graduate school, when our idea of a really good time was studying abstruse social theory, there was one or another -ism that purported to explore the linkages between the large-scale forces of Big History and the local lived experience of individuals. I remember it as a very compelling piece of theorizing with gobs of intellectual merit, lacking only in any kind of applicability to empirical research. And so Big History and lived experience remained sadly disconnected, as least on my watch.

It turns out that we might have done better to just read "Bridge on the Drina." Apparently the best known novel to have been written in the Serbo-Croatian language, "Bridge" is the story of a bridge, and of the town by the bridge, and of the people who live in the town, all through dozens of generations of Balkan history. Always in the background are the intricate ethnic relations of Bosnia and the destinies of larger kingdoms, through the long decline of the Ottoman Empire, the apex of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and the crises of the early 20th Century. Seldom discussed directly, the big political picture nevertheless underlies everything that happens in the lives of the peasants, merchants, tradesmen, students, and soldiers who populate the novel. Ivo Andric, whose day job was in the diplomatic corps of the late Yugoslavia, is masterful at showing how decisions from faraway capitals alter the tenor of life for the people who live near his bridge, and also how forces of local tradition and isolation, and not incidentally the force of accumulated local lore, render the town and the lives of its people idiosyncratic and unique.

It is, I discovered after I’d read most of the novel, a real bridge! And the town, Visegrad, is a real town! Yet despite that, and despite the highly specific local setting, Visegrad serves as a kind of everytown, and Balkan history to an extent a stand-in for any history. "Bridge on the Drina" has a real universal quality, in one sense “about” a certain time and place but equally “about” what it is like to be a human in a town that is shaped and shocked by events from the world beyond its outskirts.

The writing style – I read the translation by Lovett Edwards – has a formal, measured Central European solemnity to it. It is not a book to get through in one sitting, but it is also a highly compelling read which kept me up too late more than one night, trying to get through “just one more chapter.” Violence and sexuality are, as in real life, driving forces throughout, but are discussed and described with a great deal of dignity and discretion. However, I will also warn you of a lengthy and detailed description of a torture-execution early in the book that ranks among the most ghastly, horrifying passages I have ever read.

PLOT: A bridge is built. The centuries pass. Life goes on.

The narrative unfolds as a series of short stories and anecdotes. Most chapters include more than one distinct story within them, and many stories overlap the chapter breaks, yet the chapters provide a pacing and a rhythm that seem exactly right. Characters, families, buildings, large and small modifications of the bridge itself, and the enduring habits of the townspeople appear and reappear, weaving the book loosely together through time.

The book ends in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I. The bridge itself, however, has continued its journey through history. It was the site of horrific events during the dissolution of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. Today, though, it is a World Heritage Site, and bookish people from all over apparently make the pilgrimage to integrate the bridge into their own life stories. Having read this book, I understand why they would.

April 2017: All of the above remains true -- yet I'm going to demote it a star for not being really gripping enough, or quite rewarding enough on second reading, to get full marks....more

"J.K. Rowling’s great gift, in this opening salvo of the Harry Potter fusillade, is that she writes a virtually frictionless prose. The story and sett"J.K. Rowling’s great gift, in this opening salvo of the Harry Potter fusillade, is that she writes a virtually frictionless prose. The story and setting are jolly enough, and often rather engaging, but what compels you forward is less a sense of “I must read another chapter!” than “Why not read another chapter?” In Sorcerer’s Stone, reading is so effortless as to require no real investment."